It
is quite visible that we are not adding enough jobs in the organised
sector. We have entered the critical phase as we did not pay enough
attention to the manufacturing sector at the right time. We can foresee a
lot of challenges coming up in the job market as the global economy is
already in the doldrums. Today, manufacturing is all about automation,
artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Probably, we missed the
bus.

Where did we go wrong or what have we over looked?

We
have over looked the booming technological advancements. Reports
predict that 70 per cent of jobs in India are at risk of being
automated, where the work will move away from people to machines. China
geared up timely on adopting technological changes. Other competitors in
Asian peer group such as Thailand, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have also
taken lead over India. We certainly missed the bus which would have
helped us to change gear and shift our focus on services sector and
technological advancements, years ago.

Despite the Prime
Minister’s ‘Make in India’ push to increase domestic manufacturing, job
creation in the country’s $2 trillion economy is lagging… Then, there
exists the problem of skill gap as well.

The ‘Make in India’
initiative is commendable. But due to changing technologies, requirement
of automotive technology, the projects will move to China along with
job creation prospects. I agree that skill gap is again one of the
biggest challenge for the Indian economy.

Do you think
policy changes such as introduction of Goods and Services Taxes (GST),
Bankruptcy Code would help the job market revive?

The
government is trying to make the business environment easy to attract
foreign investments. But there will be no surprising impact on the job
market, nothing immediately at least.

IT services has
remained one of the largest job creators in the services sector. But it
is also slowing down. What should we expect in the services sector?

The
concerns over H1B visa were already hovering. Now, the election of
Donald Trump as the president of United States will add to the problem.
IT companies may suffer damage from the echoing trend of protectionism
across the globe. For other services sectors such as banking, one of the
modest sector, the back-end operations are now being handled by
machines and cloud techniques. The conventional ways of doing work are
now getting obsolete despite government’s several efforts. Hence,
services sector is also not dependable.

What will be the role of start-ups in job creation?

To
an extent, we can hope to create some jobs under this sector, though
they are small job creators... Start-ups occupy miniscule segment of the
Indian labour force participation...

Finally, what are the solutions?

The
only solution is to create low-end services in sectors including
construction, infrastructure, agriculture, tourism and hospitality.
Investments must be made in sectors which are highly labour intensive.
Moreover, start-ups should be encouraged... Creation of companies like
Uber, an asset less model which do not require heavy capital investments
but create thousands of jobs, is something we need at this hour.

This article was published in BW Businessworld issue dated 'April 15, 2017' with cover story titled 'Bharat To Power India’s Growth'